Dance Again
by saoirseronans
Summary: AU Clato: I should have known better than to cheat a friend and waste a chance that I've been given so I'm never gonna dance again the way I danced with you. Rated K just in case, no sexual or language issues. R&R.


__**I am quite possibly the first person to put Clato together with Wham and I regret nothing. Okay, so this was a little ficlet that I wrote for a friend on tumblr and I thought I might as well post it here. I hope you like it, please leave a review and (in case you were wondering) the song is Careless Whisperer by Wham. Enjoy,**

**Love, Isabelle x**

* * *

_I should have known better than to cheat a friend_  
_And waste a chance that I've been given_  
_So I'm never gonna dance again_  
_The way I danced with you._

He'd cheated.

Cheated her.

He had been many things in his life.

A thief.

A liar.

A murderer.

A monster.

But he'd never cheated, no. Only once.

Just once.

_Called to mind a silver screen_

_And all its sad goodbyes._

* * *

They tried to make him dance.

Those stupid people, with their judgmental stares, their condescending frowns and preposterous clothes. Cato hated them, for her sake, as well as his own. As the women, in their sky high heels and dresses with designs, colours, so vibrant they made his head hurt, fussed around him, all he could think about was how much she'd have hated it. They lifted his arms up, moved his feet for him, like he was a wind up doll, a toy for them to teach the steps to. Try as they might though, they could not make him dance.

Not once.

_To the heart and mind_

_Ignorance is kind._

* * *

He'd only ever danced with her.

No one else felt the same, no one melted beneath his palms like when he had curved his hands over her delicate waist. No one sighed that little satisfied sigh, like she did when he had dipped her low and bent his head to kiss her neck. No one else felt as light, as lithe, as lean, as lucid, as lethal as she had done when they had waltzed on the rooftop that dark, unending night, so long ago.

Now, as he stumbled over his feet and kicked at the heels of the Capitol women's shoes, he found himself comparing them to her even more than he had before. He moved swiftly from one woman to the next, dropping them as easily as if they were discarded shirts before he got into bed. He past women with saffron, crimson, mauve, cerise hair, hair of all the colours of the spectrum, but no one had her shade. He found no one that could hold a candle to her.

Not once.

_I'm never gonna dance again_

_Guilty feet have got no rhythm._

* * *

She'd trusted him.

She'd trusted him not to hurt her. She'd trusted that once he'd let those fateful words out of his mouth when the rule change was rebuked, he wouldn't go back on them. He could still feel the indent of her body fitting into his own as she'd leant on him for support, for comfort. She's trusted him not to hurt her. She should have expected it, really. She wasn't a fool and yet as she'd folded herself into him, she hadn't expected the knife to be stuck into her back.

Not once.

_Though it's easy to pretend_

_I know you're not a fool._

* * *

How could he face them without her by his side?

His hands clenched and unclenched, clammy and cold from sweat. The ticks from the clock echoed around the room, penetrating in his head and dominating his thoughts. The train rocked from side to side, making his breakfast lurch in his stomach as it carried him ever closer back home. In his mind, they were all lined up, ready to pass judgment on him. His parents. Their trainer. His peers. Previous Victors, of whom he would join their ranks. Her family. The amount of resent they must be feeling towards him was momentous, catastrophic. It was more than he could ever imagine. And yet he didn't feel afraid.

Not once.

_Maybe it's better this way_

_We'd hurt each other with the things we want to say._

* * *

He'd regretted it.

As soon as he'd sunk that silver handled knife into her small back and felt it arch with the pain, he'd regretted it. Her face paled, her pupils with their ethereal shade of blue had dilated, her body sagged. In her eyes, he saw the pain and he felt it, as excruciating as if it had been his back that the knife had been pressed into He'd caught her as she fell, as the last of the life drained out of her and he'd laid her on the ground, kneeling beside her. Her head had moved, slowly, agonisingly, and her eyes locked onto his for the last time. She breathed his name, a last plea, and her cannon had gone off. He'd heard the anthem and the announcement of his victory, but then again he hadn't. He'd stood back up again, leaving her on the ground, and looked up, just in time to see the shakings of the trees which announced the arrival of the hovercraft. Once he was safe inside, he never looked back.

Not once.

_There's no comfort in the truth_

_Pain is all you'll find._

* * *

He'd cheated.

Cheated on her, the only person he'd ever truly loved. And for what? An eternity alone, living with the guilt but pampered beyond imagining. What kind of a life was that? Not one he had an desire to live, certainly. He stood by the window, watching the districts whizz past until they blurred into the sky, a perfectly imperfect oil painting. The last time he'd stood there, she'd been at his side. She wasn't there now. If only he could take it back. Of all the things he wanted to reverse, to do over, that one decision that changed his life forever was the one thing he regretted the most. To be honest though, he regretted so many things. His whole life was one long regret.

His hand ran from the window sill and down to the emergency exit. It must be quite an emergency, he mused, to be driven to throwing yourself out of a train moving at over one hundred miles an hour.

Quite an emergency.

The bolt came away with a slam and the air rushing past the body of the train hit him with a force more powerful than anything he'd ever known. He gasped, feeling his cheeks flatten with the pressure. Slowly, he shuffled his feet forward so they were edging over the side of the train. He tilted his face up and felt the cold of the sun on his face, for the last time. He'd never have to dance without her again.

He let himself fall.

It was quite a shock, really. For one long, beautiful moment, he was flying, like a bird. Completely free. But then, as the forces of gravity pulled him down and the screams of the wind whistled through his body, he found that falling could often be disguised as falling. He closed his eyes as the ground rushed up to meet him, wanting his last conscious thought to be of her, her completely. As his body crushed into the ground and his mind fell dark, Cato realised that there was one thing in his short, sorry life that he'd never regretted.

Not once.

_We could have been so good together_

_We could have lived this dance forever_

_But now who's gonna dance with me?_

_Please just stay._


End file.
